Altair FEKO 2023.0.1 Hotfix Only Win x64

Release Notes: Altair Feko 2023.0.1
Altair Feko 2023.0.1 is available with new features, corrections and improvements. This version (2023.0.1) is a patch release that should be applied to an existing 2023 installation.
CADFEKO
Features
- Added quick entry of variables to fields on dialogs that support parametric expressions by snapping to variables in the model tree.
- Extended KBL cable harness importing to parse Special_terminal_occurrence, Component_box_occurrence and Referenced_components objects and made general improvements to KBL importing.
- Increased the size of the Modify Variables dialog. The dialog can now also be vertically resized.
Resolved Issues
- Fixed an issue with legacy model conversion that could result in cable connectors drawn with a different width than expected on the cable schematic view, causing incorrect or missing connections.
- Resolved an issue during legacy model conversion where the reference direction on a cable path could be reset if it was defined using expressions.
- Schematic items are now created as close as possible to the centre of the schematic view.
- Resolved an issue for schematic views where pressing Ctrl and holding down the left mouse button while hovering over a node entered wire creation mode instead of panning the view.
- Moved the Rendering group from the View tab to the Display Options 3D view contextual tab.
- Fixed a problem for schematic views where moving components connected to nets would create a spike in the net.
- Removed a verification error preventing regions using VEP and DSIA solution methods being solved when using CMA.
- Resolved an issue where face media properties were not considered for FDTD meshing.
- Fixed an issue with the conversion of adaptive frequency sampling settings in legacy CADFEKO models. The Transmission / reflection coefficients and Non-radiating networks and loads quantities were incorrectly transferred to new CADFEKO.
- Resolved a hang that could occur when automatically meshing geometry from large Parasolid imports.
- Fixed an assertion that could fail when unlinking the mesh of symmetric wires with ports on the symmetry plane.
- Resolved a rare crash during undo after proximity meshing had taken place by the change made before the undo.
- Resolved a rare crash when rendering a model with a very large mesh.
- Remove a cable port when its associated cable harness is deleted to avoid a crash.
- Fixed a problem where an empty .pre file was written out after loading a legacy .cfx file.
- Resolved an issue with the .cfm file writing of symmetric wires that could result in Error 16: Undefined wire port segment when running the solver.
- Added a warning that will be issued when files approach the upper limit which can be saved.
- Fixed a crash when selecting edges while creating a microstrip port.
- Resolved an issue with SK card writing to .pre file. If a wire has a port it will always write an SK card for the port. An SK card for the wire, with the port, will only be written if there is more than one segment in the mesh for the wire.
- Fixed an issue where CI cards were not written out correctly to .pre file for shielded cable instances with direct connections between cable connectors on the schematic view.
- Added a check for a valid FEKO_TMPDIR to use for temporary files. The application will attempt to create a folder if it does not exist. If a process like geometry import fails due to the temporary folder being inaccessible, an appropriate error is issued.
- Added show/hide functionality to cable harnesses.
- Fixed a bug that hiding a cable connector would shift items on the cable schematic.
- Resolved an issue in version 2023 where opening the mesh info dialog when there is no simulation mesh to report on caused a crash.
- Loading large legacy models should no longer result in an assertion failing with xtgraphics error messages. This is a regression that got introduced in Feko 2022.2.2. The assertion failure was triggered in the last step of the conversion when the view was being zoomed to extents. A workaround for this bug is to convert the model first using the legacy CFX converter application before loading it into CADFEKO.
- Performance is now significantly improved for models that have many requests, source loads or parametric geometry that use variables. Model loading speed and 3D view interactions have seen up to a factor of three times improvement when variables are used extensively. Furthermore, rendering of near field requests is now faster.
- Improved entity auto-labelling to be more consistent with CADFEKO [LEGACY] . Some macro recorded scripts may need adjustments since the labels may have changed.
- Resolved an assertion that failed intermittently when using the Parameter Sweep: Create Models application macro.
- Fixed an issue where a schematic net would change shape when moved within a larger selection.
- Improved the schematic view interaction performance.
- Fixed a bug that moving items on the schematic when an item not on the schematic was also selected would cause a crash.
- Prevent creating duplicate triangles in the simulation mesh when symmetry is enabled.
- Fixed a possible crash when modifying ports containing lists of geometry references.
- Resolved an issue where the mesh would be hidden when the mesh info dialog was open.
- Resolved an issue where closing the application while the model was being validated could result in a crash.
- Resolved an issue where the .pre file writing of SD cards did not reflect that the transfer impedance of a cable shield was to be loaded from a file. The solver terminated with ERROR 52750: Define shield properties: expecting an impedance and/or admittance specification when running a model where the cable shield transfer impedance definition referenced an XML file.
- Greatly improved rectangle selection performance when multiple items are selected.
- Corrected legacy model conversion of FEM line ports when a custom default workplane was set. The line port would use the default workplane instead of the correct Global XY workplane.
- Corrected waveguide port validation on model mesh faces. The model status window could have incorrectly indicated that the port reference vector does not align with one of the rectangular waveguide edges.
- Resolved an assertion failing when opening the mesh info dialog if the model contains only wire segments.
- Prevent deleting boundary triangles, for example the boundary triangles of a tetrahedral region.
- Resolved a crash when deleting triangles from transformed model meshes.
- Fixed a problem where waveguide ports and sources would cause .pre file writing to fail.
- Improved meshing for models that contain extremely small edges that should rather be ignored. Previously it would over-refine in these areas.
- Improved the calculation for the start and end points of microstrip ports.
- Improved the handling of symmetrical elements crossing the symmetry plane by ensuring that they are written out perfectly symmetrical to avoid an error in the solver.
- Resolved an issue with model status errors not being issued for grouped geometry or meshes that are not symmetric around the symmetry planes.
- Improved the conversion of legacy CADFEKO models where different types of schematic components have identical labels.
- Added validation to the prefix field when importing a CADFEKO model. Previously an assertion failed upon import if the prefix label contained invalid characters.
- Improved tolerance handling with respect to .pre file writing for models employing symmetry.
- Corrected the criteria for the verification of dielectric sheet layer magnetic properties. The check is ignored when the face bounds SEP regions, is compared against free space when the face bounds VEP regions and compares against front and back medium when bounding FEM regions.
- Avoid creating metallic triangles on the symmetry plane when symmetry is enabled.
- Fixed symmetry verification messages to only show root level geometry and not nested geometry as well.
- Symmetrical mesh entities using a scale transform will be correctly identified as symmetric.
- Fixed macro recording for transforms.
- Removed memory leaks during an optimisation run by greatly improving the memory usage of the launcher dialog and external process executor.
- Fixed an assertion that failed when trying to add a solution coefficient source to a model containing locally defined sources and multiple configurations.
- Models that require an internal mesh element size larger than 100 could have over-refined and possibly caused the mesher to run out of memory. This was seen mostly with model mesh parts that were scaled and even though the mesh size was smaller than 100, the scaled mesh size was larger than 100 and caused the problem.
- Fixed an issue causing additional refinement in the mesh when symmetry is enabled.
- Fixed an assertion failing when closing a model with variables referenced in the mesh settings.
- Resolved an issue where SK cards were incorrectly written out to .pre file and the solver failed with the error No triangles/segments found with the correct label to apply the skin effect approximation for valid models.
- Fixed script recording that sometimes missed setting values when adding entities.
- Fixed an issue with view anchoring selecting model mesh behind a geometry part.
- Improved mapping of edges when using the sweep and the path sweep operator. This change causes edges to have different labels, but is an improvement (correction).
- Updated CADFEKO .pre file writing to write to the EG card a maximum identical distance that depends on the size of the model. In the past it would always use 1e-6 as the default. This solves problems for small and large models where the elements became too small or too large relative to the maximum identical distance.
- Changed the spin operator in the new CADFEKO to work like it did in CADFEKO [LEGACY] by no longer automatically removing redundant edges. This solves problems with loading legacy models.
- Improved curved edge symmetry calculation.
- Fixed the progress indicator not completing when other Feko components like PREFEKO and RUNFEKO have finished running.
- Made general and simulation mesh related memory improvements.
- Resolved an assertion that failed with drag and drop for combined geometry containing nested groups.
- Resolved an issue where the script editor would not maintain the location of previously saved or opened scripts.
- Resolved an error being issued after a successful geometry import if there is no 3D view.
- CADFEKO model (.cfx file) importing will now zoom to extents after a valid import to show the entire model in the 3D view.
- Made improvements to the legacy model converter for labelling and grouping of elements that fail to convert or struggle to match with an element in a legacy model.
- A number of corrections were made to the simplify operator. In some cases, edges, faces and redundant points were not removed when they were supposed to be removed.
- Fixed missing reference vector fields when setting the medium to characterised surface on the mesh properties dialog.
- Named points and variables can now be used to modify a mesh vertex. The vertex will not keep a reference to the symbol once modified.
- Fixed a circular reference exception when a named point attempts to reference itself. An error message indicates when a named point definition contains a circular reference.
- Fixed a crash when using nil or empty expressions in Lua scripts when calling a method.
- Improved 3D view anchoring to rotate around topology under the cursor when the rectangle selection method is in use. If nothing is under the cursor, rotation will still be around the centre of the view.
- New options and improvements to the project tree filter can greatly improve the filtering performance. The label filter also now supports exact, in addition to partial, filtering.
- Prevented the operators on excluded topology as it would result in scenarios where the topology could not be included again.
- Corrected the .pre file writing for error estimates that use label scopes, in other words, error estimates that are set up to calculate on elements with a set of labels.
- Fixed an issue where mesh ports were not being rendered in the correct position when transforms were applied.
- Measurement tools can now reference variables and named points.
- Resolved an assertion failure when grouping combinations of groups and other topology.
- Improved 3D view anchoring for rotations around ports. Now the centre of rotation will anchor to ports when under the cursor instead of using the centre of the view.
- Resolved a model status error that was incorrectly issued for correctly defined 3D anisotropic media by adding a machine precision tolerance.
- Fixed the display of mirrored model mesh face normals.
- Resolved an issue with the keyboard shortcut (R) not working to rotate elements on the schematic view.
- Fixed a legacy conversion issue that the schematic projection and connector spacing values were not transferred to the new model.
- Fixed visibility for FEM line ports defined using points.
- Changed the default scale value for an optimisation goal from zero to one.
- Fixed a case where a model with locked parts could not be loaded.
- Fixed a model tree visualisation bug where the simulation mesh icon was displayed for geometry children of unmeshed combined geometry inside of a group. Combined geometry refers to geometry created with Boolean operators such as subtract.
- Operators that combine geometry will now create the resulting geometry where the geometry being combined reside. As an example, a union of two parts in a group will create the union in the group.
- Removed a verification warning for looped plane waves with CMA.
- Local sources and loads on ports are only displayed in the 3D view for the active configuration.
- Relaxed the tolerance and increased the number of entities considered as potential symmetric entities to improve the accuracy of finding a valid symmetric partner.
- Resolved an incorrect error when using the fill hole tool.
- Prevent setting locked or included status on child geometry via scripting.
- Added the lock action to the Transform tab on the ribbon.
- Converting a combined geometry with nested groups into a group will move the nested groups into the newly created group.
- 3D view anchoring for rotation now ignores rendering of requests so that rotation will centre around topology under the cursor instead of the centre of the view.
- Fixed certain instances where the initial mesh for a locked geometry part was not generated.
- Resolved an issue where the application appeared to hang when opening the mesh info dialog during meshing. If a mesh is not available, the line edits will indicate zero and if meshing is happening in the background, the fields will indicate Updating....
- Resolved an issue where a UTD plate with defined symmetry resulted in a solver error.
- Added validation when trying to modify locked entities. Actions that cannot be performed on locked entities are disabled.
- Ensured legacy CADFEKO model conversion transfers the locked status of entities correctly.
- Added a progress bar when creating the models in non-interactive mode for the Parameter Sweep:Create Models application macro.
- Improved the bounding box calculation for segment voltage sources on ports at the start and end of a wire. Before this correction FDTD validation could incorrectly fail for a valid model.
EDITFEKO
Resolved Issues
- Resolved an issue when opening an AW card from an older model, it did not have the Use legacy magnitude convention option checked.
- Resolved an incorrect error that was issued when editing the CD card if the radius of a twisted pair cable was larger than 1.
- Fixed the RA card file browser to filter on the correct file extensions for Orbit/Satimo format.
POSTFEKO
Features
- Extended the Optimise Model in HyperStudy application macro to support HyperStudy on Linux.
- Extended the Calculate Mixed Mode S-Parameters application macro to export the mixed mode S-parameters results to Touchstone version 1 files.
Resolved Issues
- Resolved assertion failures that could have occurred when using the POSTFEKO Calculate Mixed Mode S-Parameters application macro.
- Resolved a regression that got introduced in version 2022.3 where manual grid range settings were not being respected on Cartesian graphs when zooming to extents.
- Corrected the display of mesh faces set to be coloured by element normal.
- Fixed an assertion failure that was triggered when loading far field receiving antenna results from a .bof file only (no .fek file available) and selecting the result in the tree.
Solver
Features
- Improved the CMA treatment for lossless and lossy SEP cases so that performance for lossless calculations is comparable to earlier versions of Feko .
- Improvements were made to the faceted UTD, improving the identification of diffracted and reflected ray paths.
- The correct value for the CBFM threshold is written to the out file and the default MLFMM + CBFM block size is adjusted to appropriate values for CFIE and EFIE based solutions in order to improve general accuracy and maintain generally good convergence of the iterative solution across a number of problems.
- The accuracy of the CBFM for problems where there are sources close to the geometry has been improved.
Resolved Issues
- Improved spacing in the header line of the ray file.
- Improved ray tracing for faceted UTD to identify ray contributions that may have been missed for some cases.
- Avoided an error when tetrahedral near field requested without any tetrahedra in the model. A warning will now be issued for this case.
- Improved faceted UTD runtime for results that require multiple interactions.
- A segmentation violation when running CBFM with MLFMM will no longer occur.
- Corrected the interpretation of phase information included in equivalent near field aperture source and/or receiving antenna definitions for coupling simulations, thereby improving accuracy for Cartesian boundary formats.
- Fixed a bug in the calculation of the normal vectors to the aperture faces of a Cartesian boundary near field receiving antenna. A consistent outward normal should be used.
- Improved error reporting when too many parallel processes are used for the distributed FEM preconditioner or direct sparse solver
Shared Interface Changes
Resolved Issue
- Improved failure avoidance during startup due to application macros. A warning is displayed to the user if the application macro library extraction fails. Before, if the archive containing the shipped application macros could not be found and successfully extracted, application startup would fail silently.
Support Components
Feature
- Added an FAQ topic in the Feko User Guide that lists the solution methods that support GPU acceleration.
Resolved Issue
- AMRFEKO will now correctly stop when it is stopped from the run dialog in the GUI applications.
The most notable extensions and improvements to WinProp are listed by component.
General
Resolved Issues
- Corrected a problem where certain dialogs could not be resized in AMan (Convert File dialog) and WallMan (AutoCAD Export dialog, Database Save As dialog, Import Database dialog and Material Import dialog).
- Fixed a problem for the urban IRT preprocessing, to limit the prediction to the preprocessed area.
ProMan
Features
- Added an angular tolerance for the ground reflection of the rural ray tracing (RRT) to get a groundreflected contribution in case of no specular reflection.
- Updated the text on the Parameter: Standard Ray Tracing (SRT) dialog to indicate that scattering is also included in the specified limit Max reflections and diffractions.
- The Propagation phenomena group is now greyed out in ProMan for urban projects on the Material Properties dialog. In case of 0 roughness, scattered rays are no longer computed for the urban IRT, which happened in previous versions by mistake.
- Dynamic range for difference Descriptions has been adapted to show more details.
- Propagation results can now be converted to dBW/m2 and the x-axis of 1D line Descriptions can be converted from metres to nautical miles.
- Enhanced the coordinate transformation capabilities by adding the UTM to Geodetic conversion option and by allowing to copy the converted coordinates.
Resolved Issues
- Improved the accuracy of the parabolic equation solver in regions of the topography where the slope is too steep.
- Resolved a bug in the computation of transmission matrix element computations for predictions where only the direct ray is considered.
- Corrected a problem where the leaky feeder cable was not displayed in the 2D or 3D view.
- Several improvements for transparent repeaters were made, including higher default amplifier gain, setting the signal group ID of the gateway to avoid interference, consideration of repeater results in RunMS.
- Resolved an issue for the rural ray tracing (RRT) propagation model where the number of standard ray tracing (SRT) interactions on 3D objects was not correct
- Resolved an issue where the ground reflection for a transmitter outside the preprocessed map was not computed.
- Resolved an issue with the superposition of electric field components in RunMS to use complex Ex, Ey and Ez values.
- Resolved a crash that could have occurred when pressing Ctrl+Shift+F11 to enable column/line mode view in the status bar.
- Resolved an issue where RCS was computed, but no valid receiving point was defined. A warning message will now be issued if no valid receiving point defined.
- Fixed a bug for the auto-calibration in ProMan using the urban IRT propagation model that could have resulted in a crash.
- Propagation rays can now be displayed in the 3D view of projects with multiple prediction heights.
- Resolved an issue where Descriptionting multiple 1D values along a line, the legend showed the result type of the last loaded result. The same behaviour occurred when viewing the info of a Description.
WallMan
Resolved Issues
- Resolved an issue with the layout of the Simplify Indoor Database dialog.
- Resolved an issue with buildings being converted multiple times when converting a CityGML database to a WinProp urban database.
Application Programming Interface
Feature
- Improved the progress output in the case of HPCs when writing output to a file, where control characters are now omitted when not recognised.
The most notable extensions and improvements to WRAP are listed by component.
General
Features
- Added column sorting for the Obstacles tab and improved the column sorting for the Method 1 Calculation and Result tab in ObsMan.
- Added an option in ObsMan to run method 1 and method 2 calculations without impact from weather radars.
- Added the option to activate a log file for calculations running through the API.
- A new status port has been added in the WRAP API interface. The new status port can be used to check the status of WRAP Main program, which is running through the standard API port. The new status port should be specified in the API settings file named, APIConfigFile.txt, that is installed by the installation program under Feko installation folder "feko\shared\wrap". More information is available in Reference Binder C16 (wrap1974D).
Resolved Issues
- Resolved a crash that could have occurred when setting the map center position at or very near one of the poles.
- Corrected a bug where values for a station already deleted from Stations tab are still shown on the Coupling Loss Matrix tab in Edit Group dialog.
- Corrected a bug where user-defined or imported coupling loss matrix values in a site could be reset to internally computed values after editing station information through Stations tab in Edit Group dialog.
- Any tool settings file saved with version 2023.0 is corrupt and should be replaced by a new one saved with 2023.0.1 or later.
- Corrected a bug where WRAP would go into an infinite loop when showing maps containing area patches.
- Corrected a bug where it was not possible to enter the raster database resolution for raster databases created with earlier versions of WRAP.
- ESRI GRIDASCII files are now converted correctly with respect to x/yllcenter and x/yllcorner.
- Resolved a crash that occurred when printing to A3 pdf in WRAP FM.
- Resolved an issue in ObsMan where if an obstacle was located at lat-long (0, 0) and the station database contained any station at (0, 0), the SQL circle search statement could have caused a divide by zero exception in the ADO driver.
- Added threadlock to avoid removal of valid placement cells.
- Improved the implementation of Field Strength Calculation to optimize the computation time.
- Opening a project with maps using the API now closes any open projects with maps.
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WinPropis the most complete suite of tools in the domain of wireless propagation and radio network planning. With applications ranging from satellite to terrestrial, from rural via urban to indoor radio links, WinProp's innovative wave propagation models combine accuracy with short computation times.
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Altair Feko Product Overview
Altair Feko is a comprehensive computational electromagnetics (CEM) software used widely in the telecommunications, automobile, aerospace and defense industries. Feko offers several frequency and time domain EM solvers under a single license.
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